If the thought of a 50-story tower looming over the San Francisco Zoo and Ocean Beach like a fairy-tale giant stresses you out, the Planning Department has good news: It says the high-rise at 2700 Sloat Blvd., as proposed, is not going to happen, and was probably never something to take seriously in the first place.
When news of the proposed tower — more than 500 feet high, more than 700 units within — broke a few months ago, reactions on social media and in public hearings were as zealous as they were predictable.
“It is NOT an appropriate project for our neighborhood. It will NOT serve the community or neighborhood,” declared the inevitable online petition.
“This isn’t a joke — it’s a real proposal in San Francisco, and neighborhoods all over California could be next,” warns Our Neighborhood Voices, a statewide group looking to put a measure on the 2024 state ballot to overturn many of the pro-housing bills crafted in Sacramento in recent years.
The tower was just what antigrowth advocates needed, seemingly tailored to be a NIMBY’s worst nightmare, a kind of upzoning by way of a Black Mirror scheme. Density skeptics won’t have to harangue Planning to torpedo this high-rise, however. “This project is a distraction. It defies logic,” the department’s director Rich Hillis tells The Frisc.
The would-be developers are trying to invoke state “density bonus” laws to build higher than city zoning would normally permit. But Hillis says the laws aren’t relevant because the base proposal — the part that’s supposed to trigger the bonus — doesn’t cut it: “This project sponsor does not have a code-complaint project, which we’ve told them a dozen different times in a dozen different ways.”
Developer John Hickey disagrees, which is why he’s taking his argument to the Board of Appeals today to try and override Planning’s judgment.
Hickey’s attorneys did not respond to requests for comment. Jim Reuben, partner at Reuben, Junius & Rose, did call back, but said he is not familiar with the case.
Hickey and his lawyers say in the appeal document that while a tower this size would normally be out of bounds, they’re proposing four smaller buildings with a common base, which they suggest is not technically precluded by the letter of the law.
[Update 7/27/23: The Board of Appeals Wednesday night rejected Hickey’s bid. At the hearing, planners argued the law is written to avoid big, bulky development in zoning like this, and that smaller separate buildings are better urban design policy. The height wasn’t a factor for planners, although many commenters were preoccupied with it. Hickey did not say if he plans to continue his quest through other channels.]
Hickey once attempted to develop the tallest residential towers in the state, which SF planners assailed as a farce. The project never happened, as anyone who has casually glanced at the city skyline today can confirm.
This is not the first time Hickey has butted heads with City Hall. Nearly 20 years ago, he attempted to develop what would have been the tallest residential towers in the state at India Basin, which planners similarly assailed as a farce. The project never happened, as anyone who has casually glanced at the city skyline today can confirm.
Hickey also spent several years in prison for defrauding investors in a North Bay development Ponzi scheme. This does not necessarily reflect on whether his current proposal is a serious one, but it seems worth noting.
Given all this, you’d think Hickey and his tower (or is it four towers?) would find few friends in San Francisco. But some housing hawks appreciate that someone is pushing the envelope this way.
“Is it pie in the sky? Yes. Is this guy the villain from Roger Rabbit and every other movie about an evil developer? Sure,” says Sam Moss, director of the nonprofit affordable housing developer Mission Housing.
Moss doesn’t think Hickey could get the project financed, but he’s happy to see him force the Planning Department to take a public stand on what amounts to a valuable proof-of-concept case. “I don’t know how to explain how much speculating all of us developers do,” adds Moss. “I guarantee there’s a half-dozen developers thinking about using the code this way.”
SF YIMBY has publicly backed the project, and organizing director Jane Natoli tells The Frisc that the group also sees 2700 Sloat as a novel test. “No one has ever really tried this before,” says Natoli. “It’s a little wild if we’re being honest, but it’s not completely clear what the rules say.”
Corey Smith, director of the Housing Action Coalition, says HAC does not have a position on the project and agrees there are probably better uses of everyone’s time. But even he points out that “we need a better reason to say no to housing beyond ‘it’s too tall.’”
One pro-housing crusader who’s unequivocal about the ridiculousness of 2700 Sloat is state Senator Scott Wiener. “We need to build more housing in all parts of the city, and I respect the advocates pushing for it, but I’m focused on housing policy that will lead to realistic projects getting built,” Wiener tells The Frisc, calling the tower “cartoonish.”
Wiener is right. While the site, longtime home of the Sloat Garden Center, could and should serve for a worthwhile housing project — a more modest 12-story proposal was rejected in 2022 — this outlandish design is not in the cards. The proposal doesn’t even reflect upon our current zoning discourse, since Hickey has been chasing fantasy high-rises for decades now. So why are so many people taking it seriously?
It’s because 2700 Sloat and everything that touches it are symptoms of San Francisco’s housing sickness. Opponents see in those renderings confirmation of their most dreaded suspicions. Hundreds of people already signed petitions in a frenzied bid to protest something that planners were never going to entertain anyway. On the other side of the fence, some promoters of housing growth feel so pushed around by decades of NIMBY politics that Hickey’s bid feels almost like payback.
“I love the fact that it was going to be a 12-story building and the neighbors lost their shit, and now they get this,” Moss says. Doesn’t this kind of thing risk playing into NIMBY hands? He’s not concerned about it being weaponized because, he says, a lot of people actually like the tower.
These sorts of vendettas are not symptoms of a healthy discourse, but what else can we expect after so many generations of people gaming the system in nakedly dishonest ways? We’re supposed to be turning the page on an era of density phobia, intellectual dishonesty, redlining, and loopholes. At the beginning of the year, city lawmakers pledged to dismantle the sacred temple of single-family zoning and design a taller, denser San Francisco with new housing in “highly resourced” (read: wealthy ) neighborhoods.
That means the Sunset too will have to adapt to the rigors of a 21st-century city that’s trying to make room for everyone, with the currently planned 82,000 new homes just the start. Hopefully that also means an end to old grudges and quixotic asides like this one, later if not sooner.
Correction 7/26/23: A previous version of this story misattributed comments from Jim Reuben to another partner at his law firm. We apologize for the error.
Adam Brinklow is a staff writer for The Frisc, covering housing and development. He’s lived and worked in San Francisco for over 15 years.